The present invention relates in general to detectors for detecting trace elements and, in particular, to a new and useful ion neutralization resonance emission elemental detector which can be used with or without a mass spectrometer or suitable substitute to detect very low levels of elemental ions.
Trace elemental detection is currently accomplished by numerous techniques. Some major ones include atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), atomic fluorescence spectroscopy (AFS), inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), arc/spark/laser emission spectroscopy (AES), laser ablation mass spectrometry (LAMMA), neutron activation analysis (NAA) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF). Although generally quite different from one another, these instruments share at least two major characteristics; they usually are rather bulky in size and have high capital equipment costs associated with them.
The majority of these instruments exploit the inherently sensitive and elemental specific process of absorption or emission of radiation due to electronic transitions. This analytically very attractive feature is utilized in the present invention as well.